Keeping Up with 2nd Grade Teacher, Gingerlily Lowe!

Elementary teacher, Gingerlily Lowe has been writing heart opening, powerful songs lately and we have her permission to share them with you. She is a GITC classroom teacher and a participant in our Songwriting Saturdays class online. This video is an early version of the song as she was writing it. 

As an American woman with Chinese heritage, she has experienced first-hand the sting of prejudice many times and each time it comes as a shock. Born and raised in the U.S. she is a proud American.  Such hatred and ignorance is frighteningly and irrationally on the rise and it injures and lowers us all. 

As an outstanding educator, Gingerlily shapes the hearts of her students with love and their minds with wisdom. This love and wisdom now guides her pen. She composed this song as she calmed herself to overcome the fear of encountering such brutality before making a  necessary trip to get supplies. It tells the story of how her great-grandfather came to America to build the railroads in the late 1800s. The rest, as we say, is history.

Her family refers to “America” as “Gum San” which translates to “Gold Mountain.”
“Mei-gwo” is another name for the United States.  It means “beautiful country.”

Gold Mountain Night                         © 2020 by Gingerlily Lowe

Verse

My great grandfather came to this land,
A railroad builder laying tracks with his hands
A brave new world he was sent to see        
What he could do to help his family

Verse
Mei-gwou now without its slaves
Needed new workers so the land could be paved
Join east and west with an iron road
Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold

Verse
Toiling in the dirt, dust and sweat
Blood like paste on his back all wet
The food that he ate, a bed where he slept,
The passage of his voyage, all added to his debt. 

Chorus

 You're gonna be alright
 It’s gonna be alright
 The moon is shining bright
 Over the Gold Mountain night
 Over the Gold Mountain night

Verse
Many lost their lives, those Chinamen
Blasting tunnels through rock and mountain
Hanging from baskets to light the fuse
His slanted eyes and hair in queue

Verse
When the spike went into the ground
A photo taken, no Chinese to be found
Being the other, to live in fear  (resume train strum)
Bullied, harassment through the years

Chorus
You're gonna be alright
It’s gonna be alright
The moon is shining bright
Over the Gold Mountain night
Over the Gold Mountain night   ////

Verse
And here I am in Gold Mountain, my home
Generations born in this land we roam
“China man, get out of here”
America’s my home I wanna live without fear

Bridge
The train keeps rollin’ on,  my home my nation
And hate continues on--station to station.

Verse
Plowing the land with its engine on fire
Hatred passed on to the next sire.
Too many years to live in fear
Being the other, enduring taunts and jeers.

Chorus
You're gonna be alright
It’s gonna be alright
The moon is shining bright  
Over the Gold Mountain night
Over the Gold Mountain night

*Our family refers to “America” as “Gum San” which translates to “Gold Mountain.”
“Mei-gwo” is another name for the United States.  It means “beautiful country.”